They parked near the hangar and hustled through enemy fire across 300 feet of open ground to reach a group of Marines. Raible yelled for volunteers to push on past the maintenance building, toward enemy fighters attacking the flight line and other Marines from his squadron. More than he needed agreed to go. He took eight.

Shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade that exploded overhead ended up killing Raible and Atwell.

Capt. Kevin Smalley, 29, of Ossining, N.Y., a Harrier pilot who flew with Raible that night on his last combat mission, was in the next building over coordinating a medevac for two wounded Marines when he learned that his commanding officer had been killed in action.

“He was a very brave and very great man,” Smalley said. “His actions that night saved the lives of 50 of his Marines and inspired them to repel the attack from the Taliban.”

By organizing a fierce counterattack on the flight line, he “scared the Taliban into hunkering down into their own positions and not looking up for awhile.” That allowed dozens of Marines caught in the line of fire to move to a more secure location and limit the enemy’s advance, Smalley said.

AIR ATTACK

At the neighboring helicopter squadron, the “troops in contact” alert horn had prompted the Marines to rush onto the flight line to launch the standby aircraft. “Usually we respond to other units out in different areas of the battle space further away from Bastion,” Lightfoot said. This time, it was “in response to our own troops in contact for this very squadron.”

Enemy fighters were aiming rockets at his fleet of UH-1Y Huey and AH-1W Cobras. The helicopters were safer in the air, and more useful with their heavy firepower, night vision and infrared sensors.

“Now we can become the hunter, instead of the hunted,” Lightfoot said.

Marines were hunkered around the flight line on their bellies or a knee, firing on the insurgents with their rifles. Tracer rounds cut the night in both directions. Rounds cracked against the walls of nearby buildings, and they felt heat from the flames on their faces.

Sgt. Jonathan Thornton, 23, a Camp Pendleton Marine working as a landing support specialist, pulled up to the air strip’s arrival and departure center in a bus. When he looked around the corner, he saw a group of enemy fighters walking down the road with rifles.

Thornton ordered the Marines at the cargo lot into the vehicle, but as they were scrambling in, the insurgents opened fire. They relocated to a better position and broke into fire teams to pick off the insurgents. “The Marines were all trying to do one thing … get everyone safe and stop the Taliban from overriding our position,” Thornton said.

“It was all surreal. … a scene out of a movie,” he recalled, like “I didn’t really live it.”

The smell of gunpowder and jet fuel was a reminder that the attack inside their home base was all too real.